Disclosed herein is a seat frame and a stowable vehicle seat with the seat frame, and particularly, a foldable seat frame for stowage from a normal use state with a high assembly workability and satisfactory operability during stowing operation, including a seat bottom frame into which a cable is pulled from the side portion thereof, and a stowable vehicle seat with the seat frame.
Hitherto, there is known a stowable vehicle seat that is switchable between a normal use state and a state where a seat back is stowed in a stowing recess portion of a vehicle floor while being inclined forward. With regard to the portion for stowing the stowable vehicle seat, the stowing recess portion may be provided in the vehicle floor at the front side of the stowable vehicle seat (that is, the lower front portion of the stowable vehicle seat) due to a design of a vehicle or a demand for a reliable luggage accommodation space.
In such a case, in order to smoothly stow the stowable vehicle seat in the stowing recess portion without any interference of the stowable vehicle seat with respect to the other component or member (for example, the seat disposed at the front row, the side wall of the stowing recess portion, or the like), there is known a technique in which the seat is slidable in the front to back direction by assembling the upper rail and the lower rail, the seat is slid rearward before stowing operation, and the seat is stowed by tipping-up (for example, Japanese Patent Document No. 2009-196422 A (“the '422 Document”)). In this way, according to the technique disclosed in the '422 Document, the seat back provided in the stowable vehicle seat is gradually inclined and is slid in the front to back direction so that the seat back and the seat bottom frame may be stowed while being appropriately folded in the stowed state.
Further, in such a stowable vehicle seat adapted to be slidable, when the seat is in the front-most state (the state where the seat is present at the front-most position), the seat interferes with the front seat so that the seat may not be stowed. In order to avoid such an occasion, there is proposed a seat equipped with a canceling mechanism that prevents canceling of a lock of a lock mechanism when a seat is not in the rearmost state (the state where the seat is present at the rearmost position) (for example, Japanese Patent Document No. 2008-260325 A (“the 325 Document”)).
As an example of the canceling mechanism, there is known a configuration in which the upper rail of the seat slide mechanism is provided with a lever that may engage with or separate from the lock canceling member of the lock mechanism provided in the lower rail. Further, as for the lever, a technique is also known in which the lever may not engage with the lock canceling member of the lock mechanism when the upper rail is not in the rearmost state and the lock of the lock mechanism is canceled by the lever when the upper rail becomes the rearmost state.
In such a canceling mechanism, there is a need to ensure the precision in which the upper rail stops at the rearmost position and the precision in which the lever engages with the lock canceling member. That is, in the seat slide mechanism, there is a need to ensure the mounting precision and the component precision of the stopper that stops the upper rail at the rearmost position. Further, there is a need to ensure the mounting precision and the component precision of the lever and the lock mechanism.
In order to solve the error of the component precision and the mounting precision, the size of the lever or the lock canceling member of the lock mechanism needs to be increased, and hence a problem arises in that the size of the canceling mechanism is increased. For this reason, the '325 Document proposes a technique in which the size of the canceling mechanism is decreased.
Further, there is also proposed a technique in which the seat reliably tips up from the rear portion while folding the seat back, without causing an occasion that the tipping-up is not completely performed, by mechanically urging a procedure in which the seat is slid to the rearmost position and the striker lock is unlocked (for example, Japanese Patent Document No. 2005-53246 A (“the '246 Document”)).
The cushion material of the vehicle seat is generally supported by the seat bottom frame. In many cases, the vehicle seat includes a slide mechanism which slides the vehicle seat in a predetermined direction or a reclining mechanism which adjusts the inclination of the seat back. Further, in some cases, the vehicle seat further includes a folding mechanism which folds the vehicle seat as described above. In such a mechanism, a cable may be used as a component (particularly, a power transmission component) thereof (for example, see Japanese Patent Document No. 2009-292266 A (“the '266 Document)).
In the vehicle seat disclosed in the '266 Document, a cable is used as the reclining mechanism or the mechanism for canceling the lock of the sliding of the vehicle seat.